


The Man in the Brown Tweed Suit

by SeparationBoundary



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Blood, Fighting, Homelessness, Homophobia, M/M, Mention of Killing, Mention of rape and a rapist, OOC erwin, Police Brutality, Top!Levi, bottom!Erwin, eruri - Freeform, fairly accurate description of suicide (jumping), interaction with rapist, mention of prostitution, mention of suicide, no rape in the story though, ooc levi, rivaeru really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-08-22 17:00:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16601975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeparationBoundary/pseuds/SeparationBoundary
Summary: Levi, a quiet bookshop clerk, discovers a homeless man on the sidewalk.  Traumatised by something unknown, the man barely responds and doesn’t speak.  When victims of a serial rapist mount up, the police ramp up their investigation into the perpetrator; a tall, muscular, blond man.  The exact description of Levi’s silent houseguest.Can Levi keep his friend a secret?  Should he?  Will he ever find out who he is?  Will Levi’s heart survive the truth?





	1. I'm No Angel

Prologue:

 

_ Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, _

_ All dressed in black, black, black, _

_ With silver buttons, buttons, buttons, _

_ All down her back, back, back. _

 -Childrens jump rope or clapping song

 

It was 1933 and the great depression was at its worst - or everyone hoped so at least.  It couldn’t get any worse than this wretched excuse for an existence, surely. Levi Ackerman, clerk at a bookshop, hurrying home, was used to seeing lines of men, hoping for jobs.  Lines at the factory, lines at the docks. Sometimes the lines at the local soup kitchen, of people hoping for food, stretched around the corner.

For women, jobs were virtually non existent and few times a week, gaunt, nameless women would solicit Levi; their bodies in exchange for a few coins or food, a crowd of ragged children clutching each other in the alley behind.  Levi never accepted - despite the temptation - and always gave them a few pennies. Enough to buy a loaf of bread.

He hated it.  Hated that these women and children were so desperate and he couldn’t help them more.  He was weary of the heartbreaking sound of children crying in doorways.

 

He also felt guilty about being tempted.  Levi would have loved to have had a special person of his own.  A wife, a partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, anything. He was lonely; terribly, terribly lonely, caught in the endless loop of working, coming home, dropping into bed, then repeating it all the next day, alone.  All just to barely pay the rent and keep a bit of food in the cupboard. He craved some normalcy, some interaction with a caring human. He also was tired of jerking off every day when he could have a warm body to hold, a person to love.

If he had someone, he felt like the cycle of work and sleep just to get by would seem more bearable.

When he had these thoughts he felt selfish and pathetic.  He supposed that not everybody found somebody. He really wished he would, though.  At 30 he had waited so long.

Despite everything, Levi knew he was lucky.  He had a job and a place to live and food in the cupboard, such as they were.

He’d been apprenticed to a shoe maker at the age of 21 when the man’s son had had an arm torn off falling, drunk, under a street car.  Levi had learned the business with the intention of taking over one day. Then the depression had happened. Soon folks couldn’t afford new shoes.  After awhile they couldn’t afford to get their old ones fixed.

The old cobbler had put a bullet in his head one new years eve and his money and his business went to relatives.  Levi was left with nothing.

 

While Levi’s fortunes were plummeting, Lemuel Goldmeyer’s were rising.  

Mr Goldmeyer had recently inherited his father’s business - a bookshop Levi frequented - when the two men met. At first Lemuel’s interest was romantic.  Then he began to notice how much Levi knew about books. How he could direct a customer to the exact tome they wanted, how he meticulously returned books to the shelves - even ones he had not taken out.  Attraction gave way to financial advantage and Goldmeyer asked Levi to work for him.

Soon, Goldmeyer, who had inherited two apartment buildings and a kosher deli as well as the bookshop, was rarely seen around the place.  He didn’t drop the store because it brought in decent money. Desperate folks flocked there to spend their last few pennies on something to get their minds off of abject poverty.  Who would he sell the store to in the middle of a depression, anyway?

Levi ran the whole shop by himself.  Goldmeyer refused to hire anyone else.  He also insisted that the shop be open from 7am to 7pm.  So Levi worked 12 hours a day, six days a week. He made 3 dollars a day.

 

Ch 1 - Monday -  _ I’m no Angel _

It was cold and wet when Levi finally locked up the bookshop and he pulled his coat tight around himself.  It was a threadbare thing, a dark blue navyman’s peacoat, bought at a second hand shop, frayed at the cuffs and collar, meticulously repaired tears at several seams.  It was pissing down freezing rain, battering at Levi’s dark, narrow-brimmed fedora, making him curse. He hurried down 12th st, crossed First Gate onto West Wall, and was in his own squalid neighborhood.  Most of the businesses were closed, the dark tenements pregnant with hungry people. He was stepping carefully and almost delicately over a puddle when he saw the man across the street. The man in the brown tweed suit.

He pulled up sharply, face lit by the flickering marquee of a movie theatre.  Several people were going in and one bumped his shoulder. He brushed absently at the cloth as if brushing off the other human’s touch.

He’d seen the man in the brown suit yesterday.  Why in the world was he still there? Who would sit on the street for 24 hours?  Was he injured? Sick? Mentally unstable?

He was a big man, his pale blonde hair slicked down in the rain, darkened to gold with the wet.  He wore a nice camel colored coat of wool and sat against the stone wall of a now defunct bank. Not in the sheltered doorway that was six feet to his left, but right there on the sidewalk.  He had his wet head down and his knees pulled up. His shoes were gone, leaving only soaked, dirty socks. They, and his hat, had most likely been stolen. 

This was a grown man and, unless appearances deceived, well built.  Enough for hard labor.

But he simply sat.  He wasn’t looking for work, he wasn’t waiting in line for food.  He wasn’t even panhandling, though Levi saw some kind folks toss a few pennies his way.  He just sat, hands on his knees, head down, just as he had the day before. His skin was ashen in the cold.

Levi, who couldn’t afford any strays and who had seen so much suffering already, resolutely turned his face away with a muffled sigh, and, like the other people, he walked on.

 

Tuesday

His morning walk to work sent him along a different path.  He liked to stop at a local bakery and get a heavy, steaming hot bagel that would serve as his breakfast and lunch both.

He reached the bookshop at precisely five minutes to seven, unlocked the door and hustled to stoke the coal stove and put the kettle on.  As he bustled about, talking to the shop cat, Mercutio, pricing a small stack of books he’d bought yesterday and shelving them, his mind wandered to the poor man on the street.  How big he was, how handsomely built. Levi couldn’t help but wonder - a bit romantically - what had happened to the man. Maybe he escaped from Wall Rose Sanitorium. Or was running from the law.

The first customer drifted in by 7:20 paying 4 cents for a worn paperback romance - the same cost as a half a loaf of bread - and Levi tried to keep his mind on business for the rest of the day.

 

That evening, as Levi hurried down West Wall st, the man was still there and, like the body of an animal run down in the road, he seemed smaller, impossibly bedraggled, drooping, worn down by the insistent rain.

Levi hesitated, glancing at the small but regular 7 o'clock crowd filing into the movie theatre.  None of them acted as if the man in the brown tweed suit across the narrow street existed. Could they not see him?  His hair slicked flat, his coat sodden? Anguished, Levi looked from face to face and then caught sight of the movie poster for the film that was showing; Mae West in “I’m No Angel.”

_ Me neither, Mae, me neither _

Levi tightened his coat around himself and resolutely resumed walking.  No one else cared about the man, so he didn’t either, he told himself. It was none of his business.  

The rain began to freeze as he hurried home.

 

Wednesday  _ 12:08 am _

Levi awoke with a start.  There was ice on his window.  The temperature had dropped to just below freezing outside and he could see his breath in his room.  His mind was seething with thoughts of that man - the one out there on the streets. He had been dreaming of him.  He was probably gone, he told himself. Or dead, frozen to the sidewalk like some homeless derelict. And why did Levi care anyway?

No.  No, he couldn’t stand it.  He couldn’t bear the thought of a man dying alone on the street when he, Levi, had seen him and he, Levi, could help him.

In a flash he had thrown off the blessedly warm covers and shuffled into his shoes.  He donned his coat over the old sweater and nightshirt he slept in and left the apartment.

His legs immediately felt frozen and he belatedly remembered that he was clad only in thin cotton below mid hip.  Levi hurried. Hurried through the rain, more sleet than rain now, avoiding the puddles that were already frozen around the edges, till he reached the theatre.

Levi paused under the now dark marquee, staring across the street.  The man was still there. He had fallen or laid over to one side and drawn his feet up.  Jesus, was he dead?

The precipitation had given over the  _ pok pok pok _ of rain on his hat to the angry, insistent _ tik tik tik  _ of sleet.  The hem of his nightshirt was soaked and starting to freeze.

Levi, despite his better judgement screaming in his ear, crossed the street towards the slumping man.

“Oi,”

The man didn’t react at all.

“Oi!  Hey!”

No reaction.  Levi instinctively bent to pick up the pennies passersby had thrown - the man hadn’t bothered to collect them.  

“You dead?”  Levi demanded, wondering, again, why he cared, why he had left his warm bed to stand in the bitter cold speaking to a complete, and possibly dead, stranger.  “Asleep?”

Levi crouched down and from this position he could see the man’s face.  He was not asleep, or dead, but Levi wondered if he was sane. His eyes were open, but glassy, and his blue-lipped mouth moved as if he was talking to himself.

Levi reached tentatively out and touched the man’s knee, shaking it slightly.

“Oi … fella … talk to me.”

The man didn’t answer.  Levi realised that his head was nodding slightly and Levi sniffed the air, smelling for booze.  No, the nodding was not the tremors of a drunk but rhythmic. A low sound became audible. It was him.

Levi shuffled closer.

“With silver buttons, buttons, buttons, all down her back …”  The man’s voice faded.

“What the fuck?” Levi said, drawing back, incredulous.  The chant was one that little girls sang when playing a clapping game.  The guy wasn’t drunk, he was crazy.

 

Levi almost drove  _ himself _ to madness trying to decide what to do, trying to justify helping this man whom he didn’t even know.  But he just couldn’t leave; go back to his warm, safe bed. If he didn’t help, the man would surely die.  It was sleeting hard now and the guy’s coat and trousers were soaked and rapidly freezing. Ice had formed on the blonde strands of hair that had fallen into his handsome face

Levi hadn’t come out in this mess for nothing.  In the freezing middle of the night. Maybe he  _ was _ an angel.  Levi held a frantic inner dialogue with this own mind.

_ (Levi’s brain) You don’t even know his name, _

_ (Levi’s heart) He will die out here like an animal! _

_ He could be a crazy man or a killer _

_ He seems so lost ... _

_ You’re just lonely.  This is the loneliness talking. _

_ So beautiful and alone in the world. _

_ Yes, he’s very handsome but this is NOT the partner you seek.  It’s just a crazy drunk, dying on the streets like so many others. _

Levi finally came to a decision and, shoving his logical brain aside, he struggled to get the man up.

 

After nearly 10 minutes of pushing pulling and hoarse shouting on Levi’s part he had the man up, one arm draped over Levi’s shoulder.  The man was crushingly heavy and outrageously tall. Levi hoped desperately that the man would be able to make it to Levi’s apartment.


	2. A Good Man

 

Ch. 2 -  _ A good man _

Levi’s flat was an unimpressive affair.  It was accessed by a nondescript door squeezed in between a closed flower shop and a defunct hardware store.  The perilously steep and narrow steps were a challenge and Levi had to dump the man on a step and catch his breath three times on the way up.  

The apartment had originally been a one room above the hardware store but had been divided so that the greedy bastard who owned it could rent to two tenants.  The single bathroom had even been cut out into the hall so that both tenants had to share it. The result was two awkwardly triangular shaped and tiny rooms, each with a single window.

Levi did not fret about being seen with his charge.  The first apartment was home to the mother of the aforementioned greedy bastard who owned the hardware store, a Mrs. Finnigan.  She lived alone with an alarming number of cats and never left her room. Her son never visited her; no one did. She could have died weeks ago and Levi would never have known.

Levi made the man a pallet next to his own bed.  The man was filthy, covered in dirt, it was ground into his palms and knees and under his nails.  In addition he was soaked to the skin with sweat, rainwater, and urine, the edges of his coat still frozen stiff.  His skin was grey with the cold. Levi grimly removed all his clothing and rolled him into the pallet and several blankets till he looked like a cocoon.  By the time Levi was done the man was either asleep or unconscious.

Levi went back to the living area and hung his coat up to the side of the stove to dry and added more coal to the embers.  He dumped the man’s clothing into a washtub and fetched cold water back and forth from the bathroom to fill it.

As he waited for the clothing to soak he put the kettle on the coal stove.  When he turned to warm his frozen backside he caught sight of himself in the glass of the one window.

“What the hell am I doing?”  He asked his reflection softly.  His reflection said nothing, a too-old-for-his-age little man in a long nightshirt and a tattered brown sweater he wore to bed for extra warmth.

Levi sighed and stepped over to the tub.

Using the handle of his broom he gently agitated the blonde man’s clothes until they were fully soaked.  He then knelt by the tub and, taking up his precious bar of naptha soap and his washboard, began scrubbing the man’s shirt, undershirt, socks, and boxers.  It was touch and go with the socks for a while but in the end he got them clean. When the kettle boiled on the stove he was stiff from kneeling and his arms were sore.

Levi carefully measured out some tea into his pot and poured the water over it, retrieving his only mug one-handed.  He sat down at his battered little kitchen table with a sigh and poured out the tea after a suitable interval. The bitter liquid felt good going down, spreading a delicious fire through his chest.  He warmed his hands on his mug and glanced toward the bed.

Levi had no idea what to do next.  The man might be mentally deficient or crazy.  He didn't know who he was or that he'd even - if ever - talk to him.  He didn't even know the man’s name.

He sipped his tea, letting the warm vapours fill his sinuses and calm him.  The fire in the old coal stove shown bright and erratic through gaps around the doors and top plates, flickering on the walls and giving the illusion of warming the room up a bit.

With a sigh, Levi set his tea down and got back on his knees by the washtub, carefully pressing the soapy water through the wool of the man’s coat, suit jacket, and trousers.

Truth be told there was a little part of him absurdly pleased at his unusual find, his little midnight adventure.  Here was a warm, alive human - because of him - saved from almost certain death. Because of him! It gave him a chance to exhibit human traits that he’d always had but had had no one on whom to bestow them. It made him, an often overlooked man, feel good; useful and kind.

With the thinnest of smiles he gently squeezed water out of the heavy coat hoping that his mystery man got some good sleep and that he didn’t stretch the expensive wool of his clothes out.

 

Thursday

And sleep the big man did.  He slept fitfully until about an hour before Levi left for work then settled into a deep slumber. Levi couldn’t keep his mind on selling books that whole day. Having left a complete stranger alone and sleeping in his apartment was stressful. The man was still asleep when Levi returned, waking as Levi was cleaning the dishes from his small dinner.  Levi unwound him from his blankets but the man was barely responsive.

“Well if nothing else you need the toilet,”  Levi said matter of factly and after hauling and heaving and using the bed frame for traction he got the man standing.  Levi was stunned at how beautiful the man’s body was and how thin he was. The gaunt look only emphasized his high cheekbones and massive broad-shouldered frame, he was also muscular, enough so to put some dockworkers to shame.

Levi glanced at his cock just before throwing a clean sheet over him.  It was as impressive as the rest of him, long, heavy, uncircumcised, nestled in a base of blonde hair.  Levi cleared his throat,

“Let's get you to the bathroom,”

He maneuvered the stumbling man out his door and through the door to the communal bathroom.  Levi had never encountered Mrs Finnigan either entering or exiting said bath so he felt relaxed.

Urinating was going to be a problem.  The fellow was weaving too much to hit the toilet and his arms were useless.  He couldn’t hold his own dick. Levi got a brainstorm.

“The tub,”  He said. The big man looked at him fuzzily.  “Get. In. The. Tub,”

Levi helped him lift each leg whilst the man slouched almost all his weight onto Levi’s shoulders.  When he finally got in he seemed to get the gist and urinated fairly accurately and quite lengthily into the drain.

Levi was washing out the bath thoroughly when he heard a thump.  The blonde had sat down hard at the other end of the tub.

“No!  Don’t do that!  I gotta get you back in the flat.”

The man slowly shook his head - the first response Levi’d gotten since he’d stopped to help him.

Levi stared at the man and the man stared at him.  His eyes were watery and bloodshot, rimmed in red and shaded below with sickly blue smudges.  This was not the face of a crazy man. This was the face of a man who was exhausted and clearly at the end of his tether.

 

Levi finished cleaning the tub, stoppered it, fetched his pail, and began to draw hot water to heat on the stove.

 

Back and forth he went, filling the tub a little bit with cold water and pouring in hot until the big man had warm-ish water up to his hips.  Without pausing and without asking, Levi fetched a rough cloth and began scrubbing the dirt off of the man.

As he scrubbed he talked.

“We’ll get you nice and clean,” He assured him.

He washed the sweat and dirt from the man’s face and neck and rubbed soap into his hair.

“Your socks are already clean and dry, all toasty by the stove,” Levi told him.  He kept losing his concentration washing the man’s broad chest and trim belly with it’s sprinkling of white-blonde hair.

“You’re too thin, we need to feed you up,”  He said. He moved to the man’s knees then on to his feet   
“I make a mean stew.  How does that sound?”

Levi slowly scrubbed the man’s big feet, twice each, getting every bit of dirt off.  He had to carefully work around huge bloody blisters. Whatever had happened, he had walked a good way.

The bigger man seemed to listen closely to Levi’s prattle but he never responded or reacted … until Levi said this:

“Just give me a bit and I’ll find your people.  Your loved ones are probably worried sick abou--”

The blond man grabbed at him then - more like pawing as he didn’t latch onto Levi - just pushed and slapped at him awkwardly with his hands.  His face was a mask of misery.

It took him a bit to calm him after that, till the bath water was way past cold, but finally the man settled.  Levi sighed. 

_ No talking about loved ones.  Check. _

What had happened to the big blond man, Levi wondered. He seemed so gentle and tranquil.  Why would he not want to talk about his family? Had they thrown him out?

 

Clean and bundled in fresh sheets and blankets - on the couch this time - the blonde man slept for another 8 hours.

 


	3. Henry

Ch 3 -  _ Henry _

Friday - 5:30 am

Levi was washing up the cooking pans he’d set aside the night before to soak.  He was feeling a bit triumphant. Earlier he had wrestled the blonde man up to piss (in the toilet this time) and had gotten him to sit up unsupported on the couch.  Slowly, rather like feeding a baby, he’d coaxed the man into eating a good bit of thin gruel. It felt odd feeding a grown man, but he supposed folks did it all the time; nurses with patients, children with aged parents.  It didn't feel bad, as a matter of fact it made him feel useful.

“Are you warm enough?”  He asked the man,

The man turned his head, blonde hair fluffy from being clean.  He stared at Levi. His eyes were a remarkable shade of bright blue.

“Yes?  You know I’d really like to know your name.”

The man shook his head once, minutely, sadly, as if his name was something he had lost forever.

“Perhaps a temporary name?” Levi offered, wiping down his cast iron skillet with a bit of newspaper dipped in grease.  “I can’t just say ‘hey, you’. How about … l don’t know … Frank?” He warily watched the big man. He didn’t want another bad reaction.  The blonde man stayed quiet, however, gaze caught by the flickering firelight in the stove. Levi pondered, chewing on one knuckle,

“No … no, that doesn’t suit.  What about Henry?”

The man turned his face to him again, his blue blue eyes filled with some emotion Levi couldn’t identify. 

Levi came up to the couch,

“Is that OK?  Is Henry OK?”

The big man nodded slowly.

  
  


Work that day was easier. Levi didn’t worry so much about Henry now. As a matter of fact he hurried home after work, eager to be with his new charge. 

 

Levi bathed three times a week and he bathed Henry at the same time.  At the beginning, both used the same water; Levi bathing quickly so it would still be warm for Henry. The big man would dully and slowly scrub his own arms or hair but Levi had to do the rest. That lasted two days. Reaching into the big claw foot tub was killing Levi’s back so Levi got into the tub with him now, settling behind him and helping him wash.  Henry also now shared Levi’s bed. It was too cold and Levi only had so many blankets. Often the blonde man would envelope Levi in his big warm arms which was a relief on the coldest nights.

They were in a relationship that for all intents and purposes was like a marriage.  Except there was no intimacy beyond cuddling.

Henry would awaken with an impressive hard-on, often poking levi’s buttocks.  The taller man did nothing about it - never ‘took care of’ himself - and seemed only shy not exactly embarrassed.  Levi, however, awakening with that impressive length laid, hard, along his ass crack and hard himself, had to excuse himself to the bathroom and jerk off every time.

Levi imagined, every time, that it was Henry’s hand or Henry’s soft mouth.  He knew he was fooling himself. He knew it was all a charade. He could probably ease Henry into sex easily but that would be like taking advantage of the mentally deficient.  He knew he was romanticising the situation. He knew he should not be prattling on to Henry every afternoon about his day, like a man speaking to his wife. Should not be washing his clothes, cooking his meals, bathing him, holding him in his bed at night.

But the truth was, he adored these things.  

Levi was falling in love with Henry.

  
  


The kettle boiled and Levi poured the piping hot water over the tea leaves in his pot.  For the first time in ever he had made tea for two. He’d stopped especially at the secondhand shop and bought another mug - blue to match Henry’s eyes.

Levi sat next to the blond man on the couch.  He was at least making consistent eye contact now.

“I’ve made some tea.  Would you like some tea?”

It was hard to remember to not talk to the man like he was a fool or yell at him as if he was deaf.

The man looked at Levi’s face with calm absorption for a long moment then turned to the tea tray.  He made no indication so Levi poured them both a cup of tea. He added sugar to his and lifted it to his lips. The other man followed the movement avidly.  Levi left the other on the tray to cool. It wouldn’t do to scald the blonde man if he upset the cup.

“You ate your gruel like a champ. You liked it, I hope?  Good!” Levi began. He’d gotten quickly into the habit of not just talking to the man but having these imaginary conversations with him.  He cringed that it showed how lonely he was but he couldn’t help himself.

“I’m going to try to coax my neighbor, Mrs MacMaster, into parting with a bit of her beloved oat porridge.  What? Oh, she’s a Scots lady and a widow. I help her out with repairs now and then.” Levi explained, “She’s a kind soul and has eight sturdy kids that she feeds it to twice a day.  She swears by it.”

Levi subsided.  The blonde man’s eyes never left his face.  Levi loved those eyes, so calm and blue, like the ocean.  Henry had to have someone somewhere missing him. Levi just had to find that person - right after he discovered who the man in the brown tweed suit  _ was _ .

What was his real name?  Where had he come from? The suit and the coat were both ready made, but good quality, more than the average man could afford.  But Henry had no identification. How was Levi supposed to find his people?

 

Just between himself and the fencepost, Levi wouldn’t trade having Henry there for anything.  It was pleasant having someone to talk to, someone to care for.

This wasn’t the significant other that Levi craved but it was nice nonetheless.

Levi sighed and, leaning forward, wiped at a bit of dried gruel on the man’s mouth.  He stared at the full soft looking lips and wondered if there was someone out there who was supposed to be kissing those lips right now who was looking for him, worried about him.  Levi’s heart seemed to shrink a little. If  _ he  _ suddenly went missing who would even notice?

There was a slow knock at the door.

 

Agnes MacMaster would have missed Levi.  She valued Levi’s friendship - and his repair skills - and even occasionally dropped subtle hints at romance.

The thought of Levi at 160lbs and 5’3” having sexual relations with Agnes MacMaster, 5’8” and 200 plus pounds was a bit challenging to him, but Levi had considered it several times.  Besides being deliciously _ zaftig _ , Agnes was a wonderful person, a fine mother, had skin like cream, and a mane of auburn hair.  The only thing that had stopped Levi’s inquisitive dick was the two oldest sons John and James who, at 16 and 15, looked like grown men and regarded Levi as one would a troublesome rodent.

It was, however, Mrs MacMaster’s fourth child, George, age 11 and who looked to outstrip both his older brothers in sheer bulk who was on Levi’s doorstep right that second.  He was several inches taller than Levi and massively built despite having not even gone through puberty yet.

“Ma wansta see yer,” he rumbled, “Sink.”

Levi grabbed his tool box.

Agnes MacMaster would do anything to feed her children.  If they were in dire need she would happily have prostituted herself or lopped off a limb if need be.

As it was her husband had been a seaman for the navy and as such she got a widow’s pension totalling about 40 cents a day.  She also took in laundry, tatted lace, repaired stockings, and cared for babies. With all of this she managed to feed her eight robust kids and still find time to help the sick or injured in her neighborhood.

She was mending stockings now.

“Terrible about what happened to Lucy,”  Agnes said to her sewing.

“It is a cryin’ shame,” said a broad, dark haired woman next to her with knitting on her lap. Birdie Hill was a no nonsense first generation native with 5 kids and a husband whose lungs had been were ruined in a factory.  She was another neighbor and it was at her battered kitchen table that the two women sat.

“We women need to do more … fight more,” Agnes said, her lips pulled back from her teeth in an angry, helpless grimace.  She stabbed her needle a lot harder than necessary into the stocking she was mending.

The conversation finally trickled into Levi’s brain.

“Lucy?  Thom Keene’s widow?”

Both women started then regarded him a bit warily as if they’d forgotten a man was in their midst.  He was currently under Birdie’s only sink, fixing a leak.

Levi blinked at them, sensing the mood but not understanding it’s source.  He sat up, settling his pipe wrench into his toolbox.

“Lucy Keene?” He prompted,

“She were set upon,” Agnes said darkly

“Abused,” Birdie added in a low voice.  She glanced at her two daughters by the stove, ages 15 and 14, who, both being as smart as their mother, knew exactly what the conversation was about.  They, however, bent carefully over their sewing, ears strained toward the talk.

Levi frowned.

“She was attacked?  Hurt?”

“Jeannie, Maggie, get out back and rinse that wash!” Birdie snapped suddenly.

When the girls were safely gone, Agnes leaned toward Levi.

“She were forced, Levi,”

Levi sat back on his heels, stunned.  The thought of anyone forcing themselves sexually on anyone else was revolting to him.

“They got a description,” Birdie said, “Lucy was the third, they say,”

“Aye,” Agnes said, jerking her needle through the cotton of the stocking, “Tall man, big, blond hair; weren't that right, Bird?”

Levi went as pale as chalk.


	4. Erwin Smith

Ch 4 ---  _ Erwin Smith _

Later, at home, Levi stood, looking down at Henry who lay sprawled asleep in Levi’s own bed.  His heavily muscled arms snaked under the pillow, his sharply defined back flexed in his sleep.

Could it be true?  Could this sweet, simple man have committed those atrocities?  Levi, who knew the feel of Henry’s powerful arms, had seen the gleam of emotion in those pale blue eyes, wondered.

Levi felt sick at the thought.  But if Henry was a rapist why hadn’t he tried to rape Levi?  He could have easily overpowered the smaller man. Was he not a homosexual?  Only attracted to - and only interested in preying upon - women? 

But what kind of man cuddles with another man every night if not a homosexual?

Levi sighed.

 

The disturbing news had made Levi suddenly quiet around Henry.  He avoided touching him, devastated at the thought that he might be falling in love with a horrible human being.  He chastised himself a dozen times that day.

_ Just my luck.  I can sure pick a winner. _

But Henry didn't  _ seem  _ like a horrible human being.  He was so quiet and meek, silently passing Levi the soap in the bath, eating every speck of his dinner no matter what it was, helping, in his own way, to make the bed every morning.

Then something happened that sunday afternoon.

Levi had a tiny assortment of plants that lived, in the winter, on the mantle behind the coal stove.  Levi watered them twice a week and spoke quietly to them as he did so. The biggest, in a large pot in the center, was a good 20 inches tall with tiny spiky looking leaves that when touched produced an intoxicating scent.

“You are looking lovely today, Mary,” Levi murmured, wetting the soil thoroughly.  The heated room tended to dry the plants out quickly.

“Mare-Mary?”

Levi gasped and whirled around.  Henry was behind him, eyes focussed on the plant.  It was the first word levi had ever heard him say. His voice was rusty, unused but still deep and warm.

“Yes … yes … it’s a rosemary so I call her …”

“ _ Mary _ …” Henry crooned.  He very gently stroked the leaves and the luscious smell of rosemary pervaded the room.

Levi couldn’t think of what to do.

“Would … would you like to water her?”

He held up the small tin watering can.

Henry took it reverently and very carefully showered a little water onto the plant’s soil.

“That’s good,” Levi praised, taking back the watering can, “You did well, Henry.  You should help me every time.”

Henry looked absurdly pleased.

“Mary,” he said.

Levi had to fight back tears.

_ This man couldn’t be the man the police wanted.  He just couldn’t. _

  
  


Levi had 20 minutes for lunch.  For all the years he’d worked there, he ate his bit of sandwich or his half a bagel at the counter of the bookshop, ringing up customers.  All of that changed. He just had to find out who Henry really was. He had to find out if the man he loved was a monster.

Levi had a plan.  He began closing the bookshop for precisely 20 minutes; his allotted lunch break.  Then, when his customers were used to that outrage, he began going out during those 20 minutes.

First was to the newspaper office just a block down.  He pored through old issues looking for some catastrophe that Henry might have been in.

The Akron - a US airship, had crashed in April, killing 73, a fire in August had killed 17, a trainwreck, 8.  Murders and suicides were rampant.

He found nothing that he could tie to his mysterious guest.

Except for the lurid reports about the rapist.

 

Next he tried the police stations.  It was nigh impossible to get any information without giving up things about Henry.  He had to dance around the subject of missing persons. He invented a fictional brother for this purpose and ranged farther and farther from where he found Henry as his inquiries turned up nothing.

Finally, in a precinct across town:

“My brother ...” he told a fresh faced young officer.  “My brother went out two weeks ago and came home in a terrible state.”  The youngster nodded eagerly. Levi figured he wasn’t yet 19.

“Our mother is worried sick because we don’t know what happened to him.  Something terrible we suspect,” Levi wrung his handkerchief dramatically.  “He wouldn’t speak, or even respond when we --”

The boy frowned suddenly.

“When we asked him …things.  Just all quiet and staring.”

“Wait … wait, like wunna them wood things in a shop window or somethin’?”  The officer asked.

“A mannequin? Yes!  Yes, just like that!”

Levi leant forward, lips parted, hoping against hope.

“Yeah!  Yeah, I remember something like that!  Some poor joker, somebody said he was a lawyer, offed himself.  Jumped, if you can believe it, from the 26th floor of the Laughlan building.  Landed on a car. Lotsa people hurt trying to run away. I remember this guy though.  Big chap? Blonde? Had a pretty little lady with him?”

Levi sat in silence.   _ Lady _ ?  He swallowed hard.  Girlfriend? Wife? Henry might have a wife?  Where was she now?

“We brought him here to the station but he was just like a dummy.  In shock or sump’n’. Never got nothin’ out of him.”

“What … what happened after that?”

“Sent him on to the nut house … the, uh, sanatorium I mean.”

Levi chewed his lip in silence.

“Funny, ya know,” the boy said pleasantly, “you bein’ so short and all and your brother so tall.”  He fiddled with his chestnut brown hair. He really needed a haircut. “And you having black hair. This fella’s hair was what my mom used to call ‘cornsilk’ ya know, yella like cor--”

“We have different fathers!”  levi burst out, “Thank you so much for the information!”

Levi almost staggered out.  He had wanted information and now he had some.  It might be Henry or it might not, but Levi felt in actual physical pain in his heart.  

The man he loved more than his own life might be married.  He also might be a mental patient. Somehow that bothered him less.

 

Levi knew better than to ask Henry about any of the details he’d gathered.  He’d reacted so badly at other questions. But what was the story? Was Henry like this before?  Was he born with something wrong with his mind? Or his speech? Witnessing a suicide would definitely be traumatic.  But would it cause you to be almost comatose like Henry was when Levi found him? Where was his wife or girl? Did she leave him?

The next day was Sunday.  He planned on visiting the Wall Rose Sanatorium.

 

The mental hospital was an imposing edifice of dark stone, badly weathered as it had stood on this spot for over 100 years.  It had begun it’s life as a regular hospital, had done a stint as an orphanage around the turn of the century, before being turned into the Wall Rose Sanatorium for the Mentally Deranged.

Levi crept down the huge hallway with it’s vaulted ceiling.  He struggled not to imagine Henry in this hollow, scary place, perhaps chained up.  He steadfastly refused to imagine him convicted of serial rape and returned here for the remainder of his life.

He spoke to half a dozen staff members before finding anyone helpful.  It was a young orderly with sandy hair and a bored but friendly attitude.

“Yeah, I remember him.  He was in my wing. Tall guy, yellow hair.  He wouldn't speak. We held him for a couple of weeks then cut him loose.  Couldn't find anything wrong with him.” The orderly shrugged.

Levi’s fingernails dug into his palms as he tried to keep calm.

“His things?  Do you have his things?”

“That would be stores.  Basement.”

The blonde clerk in stores seemed more than happy to give over Henry’s few belongings.  The entirety of his possessions fit in a small brown paper bag.

“We tried to give him his stuff,” the little clerk said, “When he was discharged, but he refused to take them.”  He handed the bag to Levi who sifted through them as he walked quickly out of the building. A plain gold band ring - Levi regarded it sadly, - a well worn wallet with four dollars in it, a pocket knife.  No identification or indication of who he really was. Levi was about to close it up when he noticed a small paper packet in the bottom of the bag. He fished it out and emptied the contents into the palm of his hand.  

 

A woman’s wedding ring, a thin gold chain necklace, and a bit of folded paper.

Look at that.  There  _ was _ a wife.

Levi took a big shuddery breath, fighting with himself, battling his jealousy.  Then he frowned. Why would Henry’s wife’s wedding ring be here, in the hospital with Henry’s stuff?

He opened the paper.  It was a newspaper clipping.  Henry, looking insanely happy, and a pretty petite dark haired woman.  Clearly taken on their wedding day.

Levi squinted at the text.

_ Oh.  Mary. _

Smith.  Erwin and Mary Smith begin their life in matrimony.

_ Erwin.  Erwin Smith.  Erwin Erwin Erwin _

So where was Mary Smith?

 


	5. Don't Leave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Publishing three days this week because, holiday! (here in the US)

\--- CH 5 -  _ Don’t leave _

 

Levi hated crowds.  Sunday was the worst; the massive oppressive flow of humanity with nowhere to go made him grimace in disgust, but he had to get home to Henry.  So many people, many of them filthy from work or unwashed in general, shoving listlessly, pouring along like a slow river of despair. And the wagons and trucks, carrying the last loads of the day to or from the docks, made the narrow roads into death traps.

 

Levi was trying to make his way through a small knot of men who seemed to know each other and who were cursing and groaning over their various misfortunes.  Levi tried to appear sympathetic and slip through; he had to cross the street at the corner. He patted the contents of his coat pocket - Henry’s and Mary’s few things - for the fifth time.

Finally he wormed his way through the group and stood at the corner, one slender hand on the light post.  There were no traffic signals - one just took one’s chances.

Levi had just spotted a gap and stepped off the curb when he heard his name.

“Oh, Levi!”

“Mr. Levi, Sir!”

He paused awkwardly, one foot in the muddy street, too far from the light pole to grab it.  He turned his head.

It was Agnes MacMaster and Birdie Hill.  They set upon him like hens on a cob of corn.

“Oh mr Levi sir!  There’s been a … a…”

“Levi!  The constables …”

Levi made a reassuring gesture,

“Agnes, Birdie, I’m sure that whatever it is it---”

It was at that moment that a large coal wagon, drawn by two huge bays with white feathered feet tried to make it past a truck full of barrels of fish.  The two could just barely make it but then the truck driver - in a fit of bloody mindedness - honked his horn.

The near horse, a veteran and closest to the truck, kept on keeping on, the far horse, a youngster, skittered sideways as far as his harness would allow him.  Add to the fact that the coal man was screaming insults backwards at the fish hauler and not paying attention to his horses and the big bay’s hip bumped Levi’s shoulder.

As a man who could almost have seen  _ under _ the massive horse’s belly, Levi had no chance.

For one horrifying moment, filled with the screams of the two women and his own harsh breaths, Levi was down amongst the enormous white feathered feet of the horse, each foot shod in thick iron with screw-in studs for traction.  Levi scrambled back, up onto the curb. The horses feet seemed to follow him. He pulled his legs up instinctively as the iron bound wheels of the wagon creaked ponderously by.

Then the horse and the wagon and the danger were gone.  He felt the two women’s strong hands pulling him up onto the sidewalk.

“Oh, Levi! Levi!” Agnes wailed, searching him over for injury.

“Mr Levi, Sir, are you hurt?”  This was Birdie; a little less hysterical, a little more pragmatic.

“Shoulder,” Levi grunted, holding the battered part.

Birdie prodded it expertly (she’d been a nurse during the Great War, in her youth.)

“It’s not broken, thank the good lord.  Let’s get you home.”

Bracketed by the two well-built women Levi felt he could withstand an onslaught of horses.  

Whatever the two women had wanted to tell him so urgently was momentarily forgotten.

 

Levi was soaked and covered in mud so, as soon as he returned home - extricating himself with some difficulty from Agnes and Birdie - he dumped every stitch of clothing into the wash tub and grabbed one of his threadbare towels.  He bathed - twice - in cold water in the bathroom tub until he was sure he was completely clean. He wasn’t sure he could get the fear off of himself, though. The incident had scared him badly.

An ugly bruise was already coming up on his shoulder and both knees and the heels of his hands were scraped raw.  He was standing there buck ass naked, shivering, and inspecting his injuries when Henry … no Erwin, came out of the bedroom.  The bigger man immediately looked alarmed.

Levi made quick soothing gestures.  He knew he couldn’t just blurt out Erwin’s real name.  He had to do that gently.

“It’s fine, Henry.  I just fell in the road.”

“Road!”  Erwin croaked.

The blonde man crossed the small space in a heartbeat.  Suddenly and overwhelmingly Erwin had fallen to his knees in front of Levi and snatched him up in an embrace.  He clutched Levi’s naked body tightly and Levi could hear him sobbing and felt the hot tears on his chest where Erwin had his face pressed to his skin.

“Le-Levi!”

Levi stiffened in shock.  

“Don’t leave … don’t leave …” Erwin crooned hoarsely.  

Levi’s thoughts whirled.  Erwin was upset about Levi’s little accident?  And he was speaking?!

“Oh, Henry, Henry!  I’m OK, don’t worry!  I’m not leaving you!”

The big man was trembling.  Why was he so frightened? Had Mary left him?

Levi clutched at the blonde man, arms around him, murmuring reassurances into his pale hair.  Erwin refused to let him go.

 

Later, much later, Levi lay in bed, Erwin’s blonde head on his shoulder.  The big man was sound asleep, the edge of Levi’s nightshirt clutched tightly in one fist.

Levi was in trouble.  Big fucking trouble. He was wholly and utterly in love with this man.  And now he knew his real name. And now he could find out where Mary, Erwin’s wife, was.  He could get the truth, finally. He sighed deeply. What did Erwin think? Did he think of Levi as a brother?  As a friend? More? Less? Just some impossibly kind stranger? Was he even cognizant to understand? Did he remember his real name?  His wife?

Levi encircled Erwin with his arms and let his head loll back against the pillow.  Tears rolled down the sides of his upturned face.

 

Monday-

It was early in the morning, before first light, when Levi heard the voices.  He was a very light sleeper as it was but the voices startled him even more. He slipped silently out of bed and squinted at the old pendulum clock on the wall; 5:07.  There were a few jobs that had to be gotten to before dawn but not many.

Levi was lucky in one thing about his odd triangular flat: the single window looked out onto the street.  The adjoining apartment ‘s window looked out into the alley.

Levi sidled up to the window in question and, hiding behind one curtain, peered out.  

Police.  There were policemen in the street with electric torches, shining them into every corner.

Why were they here?  What event had need of five or six policemen roaming a quiet street at night?  The rapist again?

Levi leant forward, they were rattling door knobs, running fingers over windows, making sure they were locked.  Abruptly one officer shone his light up the wall of Levi’s building and he drew back hastily. The light swept on.

When Levi turned around, Erwin was awake and sitting up in bed.

 

The bigger man had let the sheet fall off of his upper body and pool onto his lap.  Levi could just make out the trail of blond hair on his belly, disappearing downard.

“Henry …”

“What … what … was that?”

Still unused to the other man speaking, Levi jerked, startled.  He regained his composure quickly.

“Just a few police officers …”

“Police?”  Erwin echoed, clearly uneasy.  Why would Erwin be afraid of the police?  Levi’s guts roiled.

“Probably just out on patrol.  Let's get back to be--”

“Looking?”

Levi stared at the blonde man.  He couldn’t keep the despair completely off of his face.

“Henry …”

“Looking for ...?”  he tremblingly put one hand on his own chest.

Levi crossed the small space between them and climbed onto the bed, gathering Erwin up in his arms.

“No of course not!  Why would they be looking for you … Henry?”

“I don’t remember …”  Erwin whispered, burrowing his face into levi’s nightshirt. “I don’t remember!”

Levi rocked the big man gently and whispered soothing things.  In truth, on the inside, he was distraught. Henry was clearly getting himself back to himself.  He’d spoken a complete sentence. He was probably getting scraps of memories, too. Why else would he be so upset?

Levi heard a tapping noise, faint.

He disentangled himself from Henry to cross to the window.  What were the police doing now? The street was cold and silent.  The noise sounded again. It was a knock. On his door.

Levi went pale and froze, standing by the window.  His gaze met Erwin’s bright blue one, both sets of eyes widened.

The knock sounded again, loud in the room.


	6. Carefully

Ch 6 -- _Carefully_

Levi trembled and Erwin gave a little groan.

“Levi?”

It was a voice, coming from outside the door.   A woman’s voice. Without thinking, Levi strode across the room and jerked open his door.

Birdie and Agnes sood there, clutching each other.

They immediately rushed in, crowding him nervously.

"Mr Levi, Sir!"  Agnes said, breathless.

“Whatever are you doing up this time of night?”  Levi demanded.

"There's constables in the streets," Birdie said.  “They was shining them torches in the windows!” They both looked terrified.

"I know," Levi said soothingly, "I saw them.  It's OK ... we ..."

“Whatever could they want?”  Agnes asked.

“It’s not a good sign,” Birdie said heavily, shaking her head.

“I’m sure it will be all--” Levi began

Then, as one, both women caught sight of Erwin, who had left the bed and

stood, sheet hastily wrapped around his waist, next to the bed.

There was a long, startled, silence.

Levi tried to think of what to do but his brain refused to function.  He simply stood there in just his nightshirt and sweater and let his two neighbours stare at Erwin who had patently just gotten out of Levi’s bed.

Abruptly Birdie grabbed at Agnes and murmured something.

Levi knew what they were thinking: that Henry met the description of the rapist.  Did they trust Levi?

“Levi”  Agnes whispered urgently, “Is everything alright here?”

Levi’s brain finally got around to putting everything together.

“What?  Yes … yes, of course!  He’s … he’s a … friend.”

Agnes knew Levi was attracted to men as well as women and Birdie had suspected it.  A look of understanding crept over their faces.

“May we come in?”  Birdie asked solemnly.

“Yes, my word!  Come in, come in!  I’ll make us all some tea.”

 

Levi made tea, introduced ‘Henry’, and was flustered and flattered and grateful that not only had his two lady friends come to him when they were frightened, but both apparently caught on to his situation and didn’t judge him.

He toasted a few slices of bread and served them with a thin scraping of butter for everyone’s breakfast.

They chatted for a few minutes while they ate and drank their tea, Levi carefully refilling each woman’s cup and Erwin offering the jam around.  Levi excused himself briefly to the bathroom to get ready for work. When he returned, shaved and dressed, both woman were chattering happily to Erwin and sewing.

“Henry,” Levi said, “Why don’t you get dressed?”  He nodded pointedly toward the bathroom. The big man colored slightly (he was still wrapped in a sheet) and rose to comply.  He inclined his head to the women.

“Nice meeting you,” He said slowly and, smiling bashfully, went to dress.

 

There was a rather pointed silence as Levi spread jam on two pieces of bread for his lunch.

“Go ahead and ask,” Levi said quietly.

“Nothin’ to ask, dear,” Agnes said matter-of-factly.  She bagan packing up her sewing. “Beautiful lad, though.”

“Birdie?”  Levi asked, wanting to give the other, more practical, woman a chance to voice her opinion.  Birdie’s opinion was of a different sort.

“You be careful Mr. levi, Sir,”  She murmured.

Levi paused in the act of taking a last sip of tea.

“That old Alva is quite the tattletail.”

“Alva?”

“Old Alva Finnigan,” Birdie said, her eyes never leaving her stitching, “What live next to ya.”  She jerked her head toward the wall separating Levi’s flat from the other one.

Levi started.

“Mrs Finnigan?  I’ve never seen her the whole time I’ve lived here!”

Birdie shrugged.

“She keep odd hours, that one, and all her friends usually go to her.”

This was troubling news.  All those trips to the bathtub with Henry …  Oh, God. Tonight, too, when Henry was speaking.

“Buncha old gossipy twats,” Birdie concluded with a sniff.

Levi shrugged on his coat, mind whirling.

 

Levi walked absently to work, turning over everything in his mind.  He absolutely had to figure out what he was doing. He had to tell Erwin his own name - he owed it to the man - but he didn't want to cause the man any suffering.  The idea of his lost family, his girl, and his name seemed to pain him. What should Levi do?

And then there was the whole thing with the rapist out there whose description matched Erwin.  Levi would rather die than let them take Erwin to jail or back to the sanatorium.

Levi sidestepped quickly as two police officers walked toward him.  He kept his head down.

He had to prove that Erwin was not the rapist.  He stopped abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk and a man behind him bumped him.

“Hey, watch yerself, peckerhead!”

“Sorry,” Levi murmured

The sanatorium.  If he had the dates Erwin was there, coupled with the days he had been with _him_ …  If the rapist had struck during those times then Erwin would be absolved.

Levi hurried on with a lighter step.

 

When Levi got home that night he carefully got Erwin used to the idea that he’d be gone - he could only go to the sanatorium on the weekend.

Erwin was not happy.

“You’ll be gone?”  He asked anxiously.

“Just for half a day,”

“Half a day,” Erwin echoed.  He was trying valiantly to set the table but he couldn’t remember where the cutlery went.  Levi gently showed him.

“Fork on the left; knife, sharp edge in, then spoon, on the right.”  Levi smiled warmly at him. “You’re doing great, Henry.”

The bigger man smiled back, that big sweet smile that Levi hoped was just for him.

 

They discussed Levi being gone again over supper then right before bed.  Levi did his best to reassure Erwin. The big man seemed convinced that if he let Levi out of his sight he’d lose him, too.

 

Erwin’s anxiety showed itself as they snuggled in bed.  He enveloped Levi in a protective embrace and clutched at his nightshirt as if he was afraid his friend would be taken in the night.

Levi lay awake - as he often did; sleep never came easy for him - arms behind his head, staring at the water stains on the ceiling.

What would he do if the dates of Erwins incarceration and the dates that the rapist had struck didn’t coincide?  He frowned, trying to will that thought away.

Erwin shifted in his sleep, releasing Levi’s night shirt and rolling toward the wall.  Levi cuddled against the bigger man’s back - they slept most of the time in each other’s arms one way or another - and wrapped his right arm around Erwin.

Slowly the blonde man’s hand settled on top of Levi’s.

Erwin wasn’t asleep.  Erwin was awake.

Levi kept still.

Erwin’s big hand gripped Levi’s and pushed downward.  Levi could feel the man’s pubic hair, springy, under his fingertips.  He remembered how blonde those hairs were, a pale, pale gold

What the hell was Erwin doing?

Erwin shifted and Levi realised this wasn’t just some random, getting comfortable movement.  His hand was directly over Erwin’s big dick which was impressively rock hard. Erwin firmly closed his own fingers over Levi’s, effectively closing Levi’s fingers over his straining cock.

Levi was barely breathing, barely believing that this was real.  He had Erwin’s heavy cock in his hand and was well on his way to an erection himself.

What did Erwin want?

Levi knew what _he_ wanted.  It took all of his self control to not press Erwin face down flat on the bed and mount that beautiful ass.

Instead he carefully rested his lips against Erwin’s back.  The big man shivered and closed Levi’s fingers tighter around his cock, beginning a tentative stroke.  

So _this_ was what Erwin wanted.

It didn’t occur to Levi to _not_ take up the rhythm, to refrain from giving the big man pleasure.  He was in love with Erwin. He didn’t care what name he went by or that he had a wife.  None of that would stop him loving the man.

Levi had to scooch down to reach around Erwin’s hip and grasp his cock so Erwin rolled, slowly, toward him, onto his back.  Levi was able to maneuver much better this way and Erwin arched his back, moaning as levi added a twist to each upstroke.

Levi was fully hard now, his turgid dick poking Erwin’s hip.  He strained sideways toward Erwin’s face and they locked gazes.  Erwin’s pale blue eyes were soft and gentle - Levi’s Henry was still in there despite his real name coming to light.  Levi hovered over the bigger man, studying his soft lips, leaning onto his firm chest, his hand keeping up a languid rhythm.

When Levi kissed him, Erwin blushed shyly.  His return kiss was soft and fumbling. Their lips met again and the blond man slowly got the feel of it.  Levi, for his part, had to fight not to rush in, not to thrust his tongue into the other man’s mouth, nibble on his plush lips.

Erwin gasped.  Without realising it, Levi had quickened his stroke.

“Levi …”

Their next kiss was wilder, sloppier, more greedy.  Erwin opened his mouth to Levi’s clever tongue and the smaller man probed deeply, tasting all of Erwin’s mouth.

They only broke apart when Levi reared back suddenly.

“Spread your legs,”

Erwin looked puzzled.

“Open your knees, Henry,” Levi panted.  The man complied and Levi positioned himself on his knees between the other’s thighs.

Levi leaned forward, supporting himself with his right hand.  With his left he jerked up the hem of his nightshirt and peeled it and his tattered sleep sweater over his head.

Erwin froze, staring.

Levi went still as well, suddenly uncertain.  He needn't have been. Erwin stared at his body like a starving man stares at a steak.

Levi was small but strongly built.  His muscles stood out in relief under his smooth, pale skin.  Erwin let his fingers wander in fascination down Levi’s taut belly, through Levi’s pubic hair - as black as the hair on his head - and trail along the fat, curved cock jutting from it.

Levi hissed at the sensation and pushed his hips forward, nudging his own cock against Erwin’s.

Levi knew that he could grasp the man’s thick thighs and lift, could push his own cockhead insistantly against Erwin’s hole.  He knew that he could slowly open the man up and take him - something he’d daydreamed about doing since he first found Erwin. But he didn’t.  He loved Erwin. He would never coerce him. Instead, he wrapped his left hand around both their hard cocks and slowly resumed his stroke.

“Feels … feels _good!_ ” Erwin whispered.

Precum from both cocks slicked up Levi’s hand and he bumped his stroke up to an insistent rhythm, the noises obscene in the quiet room.  Levi couldn’t reach Erwin’s plush mouth to kiss him so he contented himself with kissing and sucking on the man’s inner thighs as far down as he could.  After only a few minutes he had a small scattering of purplish lovers marks on Erwin’s pink skin and the man was a shuddering mess.

“So … close … Levi …” Erwin moaned thrusting his hips up in time with Levi’s strokes.

Levi couldn’t help himself.  The sight of Erwin coming undone below him was too much.  He licked a finger on his free hand and gently traced wet circles around the bigger man’s hole.

The effect on Erwin was electric.

He gasped, then arched up again, throwing his head back onto the pillow.

“Le-hee- _vi!_ ”

The bigger man came with just that one gasped warning, going rigid for a moment before painting his own chest in spurts of white.  Levi, who was not far behind was taken a bit by surprise but the sight of the cum on Erwin’s broad chest only turned him on. He redoubled his stroke on his own cock and came, moments later.

“Nnn … nnnn!  Er … win … _Uh!_ ”

Levi collapsed to the side after riding out his own orgasm and the two men clutched each other briefly, sweetly, before settling into a comfortable snuggle.  Levi dozed off quickly, deliciously satiated, oblivious to even the sticky cum, but Erwin lay awake, cuddling with the smaller man and thinking.

“Erwin,” He softly said into the chilly room.  “Erwin …”

 


	7. Betrayed

 

Ch 7 --  _ Betrayed _

 

Tuesday-

“You can’t go out,” Levi cautioned, “They haven’t caught the ra--”

“Can't stay in forever,” Erwin said a bit belligerently.

Levi smiled to himself at the defiance.  He revelled in it. Let him be belligerent. Let him rage or laugh or cry or anything other than the stiff and dead demeanor he’d had so far.  He turned to Erwin

“You’re right.  Sunday, when I’m off.  We’ll go out Sunday.”

Erwin smiled like the sun coming out and Levi couldn’t help but smile back.

 

So they spent the evening in, Erwin watered the plants by himself and Levi cooked some spaghetti which Erwin had never had.  Levi even convinced him to try a tiny bit of wine.

After their meal, as they sat on the couch in front of the stove, warming their toes and sipping wine, Levi was struggling to decide if now would be a good time to discuss some of Erwin’s past.

Erwin beat him to it.

“Last ni-night …” he began.

“Yes?” Levi said.

“When we … uh … when we did what we did …”

“Made love.  It’s called making love, Henry.”

Levi settled his small hand over Erwin’s big one and smiled.  The bigger man blushed and smiled back. Levi took a sip of wine.

“Y-you didn’t call me Henry,”

Levi froze.  What had he called him?  Had he really called him Erwin?  How could he be so careless? It had just felt too good; he had been utterly blissed out. Too late for excuses now.

“You called me Erwin.  That’s my real name isn’t it?  Erwin Smith.”

Levi stared at him.

_ He’s getting his memories back. _

“How do you feel about that?  Can I call you Erwin?”

The blonde man studied his hands where they lay on his lap.

“Yes … yes.  It’s my name after all.”  Abruptly a few tears leaked out of Erwin’s eyes.  Levi took both of the man’s hands in his.

“Are you remembering?”

Erwin nodded, sniffled and wiped his eyes on one shoulder.

“Yes.  A little.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Erwin shook his head.

“Not yet.  I-is that OK?”

“Of course, Erwin.”

The man smiled gratefully and Levi stood and kissed him.

  
  


Wednesday - early morning 

_ Bang, bang, bang, _

There was a pounding in his head.  Levi’s subconscious brain thought it was thunder.  He scowled in his sleep and rolled in agitation.

_ Bang!  Bang! Bang! _

_ No, not thunder ... _

Levi snapped awake.  Someone was knocking - pounding - on the apartment door.  Birdie and Agnes again?

Levi reached instinctively for Henry.  The man was awake and staring like a frightened rabbit.

_ Bang! Bang! Bang! _

_ There’s no way that’s the women. _

For a moment Erwin and Levi just clutched each other.  Then Levi slowly left the bed.

“Get dressed, Henry,” Levi hissed.  The other man scrambled to comply. Levi dragged one blanket and a pillow off of the bed and threw them onto the couch.  He looked somberly toward the door.

  
  


Levi’s door had two vertical panels of frosted glass in it - it was the flat’s original front door.  You couldn’t see through it but you could make out figures on the other side - the side with the light.  Levi could make out a crowd of men.

He took a deep breath and walking firmly to the door, opened it wide.

 

There were four - no, five - serious looking uniformed policemen.

Behind them was a tiny wizened woman with scraps of orange hair sticking out from her skull.  She had on a wide, satisfied grin that held two teeth; one up, one down. 

Alva Finnigan.

 

One of the officers with a gold bar on his uniform arm cleared his throat.

“Just come on now quietly, sirs,” He said

Levi blanched.

_ Both of them? _

“W-why?  On what charges officer?”

The man, at least ten inches taller than Levi, hooked both thumbs in his belt and peered down at him.

“Well, your friend here for suspicion of multiple physical indignities perpetrated on women …”

“And me?”

All the officers shifted almost uncomfortably and shot glances at each other.  The sergeant was phlegmatic

“You’re under arrest for suspicion of performing acts of a deviant nature.”  he gestured and two of the officers slipped past Levi and into the apartment.

“Wha … what?”  How could they know?

Now the big sergeant looked angry.  His voice rose. Alva Finnigan’s grin widened.

“Did you or did you not, sir,  invite this person - he inclined his head toward Erwin - to your home for the purpose of prostitution, or another immoral or lewd purpose?!”

A burly policeman, shorter than Erwin but bulky, took him none too gently by the arm and the blonde man immediately looked alarmed.

“Levi?!”

“Wait!  It’s OK, Erwin!  Just cooperate with them we’ll get this straightened out at the station.”

Levi hoped so.  He desperately hoped so.  What would he do if the police kept him?  If they detained - or worse pressed charges against - Erwin?  He didn't have the money for a lawyer. They could take his love away from him.

Erwin, apparently with the same thought, began resisting, dragging the burly policeman around.  The second officer in the flat advanced on him, pulling out his nightstick as he came.

“Wait!” Levi yelled, “What are you doing?  He’s just scared!”

Erwin was struggling in earnest now, easily overbearing the policeman who had him. The second man reached them and without warning the nightstick came down and Erwin crumpled to the floor.  Levi went crazy.

“You didn’t have to hit him!” the smaller man screamed as they grabbed him. “He wasn’t hurting you!  Is he alright? Erwin!”

The three officers fell on Levi then, punching and kicking.

 


	8. Vice and Depravity

Ch 8 --  _ Vice and Depravity _

Levi awoke face down on a hard, clammy floor.  He lifted his head with some difficulty, his cheek peeling off of the gritty surface in an unpleasant manner.  

He hurt.  He hurt everywhere.  Where was Erwin?

He didn’t have to look far.

He made it - excruciatingly - onto his hands and knees and found himself in a jail cell, one of two.  Erwin was in the second one, sat on the floor, his back to the adjoining bars, head down.

Levi could barely move.  It seemed that the officers had been diligent in taking out their rage and fear over a pansy like him.  One eye was swollen shut, and his lip was split. He ached like the devil down both sides and, if the level of pain was any indication, he had a broken rib on his right side.  Unable to get up any further, he crawled slowly and painfully over to where Erwin sat.

“Erwin,”

The big man’s head snapped up and he spun around.

“Levi?  Oh, Levi!”  He reached through the bars and gingerly touched the smaller man’s battered face. “What did they do to you?”

“Beat me pretty good.  Are you alright?”

“The back of my head hurts,”  He said, gingerly fingering the injured part.  There was black blood matted into his fair hair.

“I should think so.”  Levi tried to get more comfortable on the hard floor and grimaced. “You were hit hard.  Have they spoken to you?”

“They as--asked me questions when I first woke up.” Erwin said, “I didn’t understand.  Women’s names …” Erwin studied his hands. He looked up suddenly.

“Is it true?  There’s someone just like me … for--forcing himself on girls?”

Levi shook his head and gripped Erwin’s hands through the bars.

“Someone who  _ looks _ like you.”

Erwin looked anguished.

“Could … could it  _ be _ me?  There’s so much I don’t remember …”

Levi squeezed the big man’s hands.

“No.  Absolutely not.  You’d never do that.”

“Well ain't that sweet?” a voice said.

Levi immediately let go Erwin’s hands.

“The pansy and his girly fella all snuggled up,”

There were two policemen outside the cell, a sergeant and a regular constable.

Levi shrank in on himself, well aware that he still had on only his nightshirt and sweater.  Erwin had managed to pull on trousers and a shirt before they were taken but both of them were barefoot.  An intentional disadvantage. It gave more power to the policemen to be fully clothed while their prisoners were only partially so.

 

Levi struggled slowly and painfully to his feet.  He tried to stand as tall as he could, snatching at the tattered scraps of his dignity.

The sergeant tucked his hands together behind his back.

“Thompson?” He grunted.

The second man pulled out a tiny notebook and, squinting, consulted it.

“According to a statement by a … uh … neighbor … a Mrs Finnegan, you sir and this gentleman here (he jerked his head at Erwin) have been performing acts of vice and depravity.”  The man tucked his notebook away looking smug.

“That’s ridiculous,” Levi said.

“Not according to her, Sir.  Says she’s a grandmother and a good churchgoer, Sir.”

The sergeant gestured impatiently.

“Said you two,” he grimaced here, “use the bathing facilities  _ together _ .”  the two large men glared down at Levi.

Levi stuttered something, recovered, trembling.

“We … we b-both use the bath … but separately … n-not together.  That … that’s disgusting.”

The last word came out a whisper and for a moment Levi closed his eyes tightly, tears squeezing out of the sides and wished he could just live his life without having to hide.  Why was he wrong? How could love be wrong? He took a deep breath, steadying his voice.

“He’s just a friend.  We room together. Nothing more than that.”

The officer was scribbling in his book and the sergeant snorted.  They both turned without a word and left. Levi’s legs gave out then and he sat down on the gritty floor, his head in his hands.

  
  


A half an hour later the sergeant returned alone.  Levi scrambled to his feet.

“Really officer,” He tried to sound calm and reasonable, “You are mistaken.”  He subconsciously pulled at his battered brown sweater, willing it down over his thin-cotton-clad crotch. “We are simply roomates for financial reasons.  I think of Mr Smith as a brother …”

The sergeant was unlocking the door to the cell - his cell - and for one horrifying moment Levi was sure he was going to be beaten again.

But no.  The man roughly hauled him out, a moue of disgust on his face at having to touch Levi.

“You’re free to go, rose petal.”  He said.

Levi gaped.

“Get out of here!”  the man snarled.

“But … but … Erwin.”

“I said you’re free to go!”  The police officer’s voice dropped to a growl. “We can’t hold you without concrete proof but your boyfriend matches the description of a rapist.  Now take your pansy ass elsewhere before I see how you like sucking on my nightstick!”

Levi turned to Erwin who was plastered to the bars of his cell.

“Don’t worry.  I’ll be back to get you,”

And then he fled.

 

Levi ran.  He ran as fast as he could - in his bare feet - on the slippery icy streets.  He felt like a traitor, like a monster for leaving Erwin, but truth be told, there was nothing he could do in the middle of the night, dressed only in his sleeping attire.  He had to go back, back when the men with real authority were there, himself dressed like an upstanding citizen.

 

As soon as he was dressed Levi donned his coat and left for the comfort of Agnes’s flat.  He knew she’d be up. Birdie was already there as the two women spent nearly every day together.  Levi teared up whilst still standing on Agnes’s doorstep and blurted out everything that had happened.

“Oh, Levi, honey, come in!”

The two women wrapped him up, stuck tea in his hand, and bundled him into a chair by the fire.

“You get warmed up a bit before you run off to work,” Birdie said.

“How’d you know I was going to work today?”

“Levi, sweetie, we know you,” Agnes said.

Levi bowed his head.

“Oh Agnes, Birdie, I miss him so much already!”

Birdie, who knew her friend’s aversion to being touched, just patted his arm gently.

“I know, Luv, I know.” Agnes said,  “Sometimes I miss my Billy so much it hurts.”

Levi sniffled and wiped at his nose.

“How do you cope with it?”

“Well, I look at my children, who need me and at Birdie, who's my best friend in the world.  I look at my home and my garden, that depend on me to keep them up, and know that Billy would want me to soldier on.  Erwin would want that too”

Levi wiped at his nose again and Agnes gently took his snot-sodden handkerchief from him and replaced it with her own.

Levi regarded the ridiculously lacy item and chuckled.

“Perfect for a pansy like me,”

Agnes MacMaster and Birdie Hill frowned thunderously but refrained from saying anything.

  
  


Levi’s workday was excruciating.  It seemed to creep by. 

It was wet and cold again when he finally locked up shop and Levi shrank into his worn coat and remembered the last time the weather was so inhospitable; the night he found Erwin.  He hunched even more against the wind and blowing rain and trudged toward home. He had to grab a quick cup of tea and get back down to the station. See if he could talk some sense into the police about Erwin.  He passed the theatre, staring sadly at the spot where he had discovered the man that he had come to love, and walked quickly on.

Only a block from his own apartment, he spotted a small figure in front of him.

_ Who would be out in this mess? _

He figured it was someone coming home from work, too.  Night had fallen during his trek to home and he could barely make out the … woman? No … girl, ahead.  It was way too late for any females to be out alone much less a child.

Abruptly the girl turned her head, like a doe in the woods scenting danger, and Levi caught a glimpse of a profile and masses of auburn hair.

He recognised her.  It was Bernice - Neecie - Agnes’s 13 year old daughter.  What was she doing out alone, at night, in this weather? Levi hurried into a trot intending to intercept her.  He got within 20 feet of her when, without warning, a tall, blonde, male figure stepped from the dark alleyway Agnes’s oldest daughter had just passed.  For one horrifying moment Levi froze, stumbling to a halt in fear and astonishment as the figure advanced on Neecie.

“Erwin?” Levi whispered,

And then the man was upon the girl, hand over her mouth, dragging her wildly struggling form back into the alley.

It wasn’t Erwin, of course, Levi realised; it was the rapist.

And he had Agnes’s daughter.


	9. Goddamn Girl

Ch 9 --  _ Goddamn Girl _

Levi had no idea whatsoever what he was going to do, but do something he must.  He ran full tilt into the alley, his mind blank. Suddenly the thought came over him of Erwin and how Erwin had suffered,  _ was _ suffering in jail because of this piece of human filth who resembled him.  He thought of every girl and woman this disgusting creature had attacked. When Levi rounded the corner, the blonde man had the young girl against the rough brick wall and was attempting to lift her skirts.  Levi was no competition against the bigger man, so did the only thing he could think of: he jumped on the man’s back.

The man grunted in shock as Levi caught up a double handful of greasy yellow hair and hung on them, jerking the man’s head back.  For a moment the man took both hands off of the girl.

“Run, Neecie!  Run! And scream for all you’re worth!” Levi yelled, yanking the stringy strands of hair as hard as he could, “RUN!”

Bernice MacMaster didn’t need to be told again.  She tore away from the man’s greedy hands and rabbitted down the alleyway wailing like a siren.

Meanwhile the blonde man was cursing and reaching for Levi.  Levi managed to avoid him for a few seconds then the blonde man seized him by the collar and pulled Levi over his head like a dirty shirt.

Levi landed hard on his back, his feet up against the wall of the alley, gasping for breath.

He lay there for a moment before looking upside down at the attacker.  Up close Levi could tell that this man looked nothing like his love. He wasn't as tall and was wirey with stringy muscles.  His face was pinched and mean. No comparison to Erwin Smith.

But Erwin Smith’s face would not be seen by Levi again if he couldn't get out of this situation.  The man grabbed him by the collar again and hauled him up, turning him and slamming him against the wall.  Pain bloomed in Levi’s back and head and an acrid coppery smell invaded his nose. The man had some sort of dark maroon stains all over his hands, spattered on his face, like paint.

He lifted Levi away from the wall and crashed him back into it and Levi’s vision went white for a moment.

Suddenly Levi’s brain identified the smell.  It was the smell of an abbatoir, a place where they killed animals.  It was the smell of gore.

_ Oh god that’s not paint, that’s blood. _

The blonde man had attacked someone else already this evening.

And he wasn’t just raping anymore.

_ Crack! _

Levi’s head and back contacted the brick wall again.  Excruciating pain flared in his already battered face and ribs.  He had to get away, had to get away before this man killed him too.  He struggled as best he could, trying to kick the man, scratch him, anything.

“Hold still you little rat!  That was a good girl! I wanted that girl and you made me lose her.”

“Fuck you!” Levi said and snarling, the man closed both hands over levi’s throat.

Levi fought as hard as he could considering he was being suspended by the neck but he grew weaker.  He tried to keep struggling but his oxygen starved brain was starting to go fuzzy and his vision was coming up in huge black spots.  Slowly his body relaxed as he sank toward unconsciousness. There was a roaring in his ears, too, no … not in his ears …

The blonde man heard it too.

He froze, listening.  There was a swelling of sound, Levi could hear it clearly now, not a roar but like a wave coming in on the beach.

Recognition clicked on the blonde man’s face.  Levi’s head sagged sideways. It was the sound of people - a large group of people.

“The girl,” the blonde man growled, “Goddamn girl!”

He dropped levi with an angry look and was gone leaving the smaller man to slip into unconsciousness.

 

Levi finally came fully awake and alert back in his own apartment.  Birdie and Agnes were there.

“There’s the sleepy head!”  Birdie said.

“You got marked up even more you naughty man!”  Agnes scolded. She held up a tiny mirror for him to see the bright bruises on his neck.

“What … what happened?”

“You attacked the rapist!”  Birdie said.

“And saved my girl,” Agnes amended warmly.

“Where is he?  Did he get away?”

“Heavens no!” Agnes said, “Neecie roused the whole block!  We gathered a crowd of men. A handful of police officers and several men from the neighborhood.”

“They caught him, thanks to you,” Birdie said with grim satisfaction, passing Levi a cup of tea, “And dragged him down like the wild animal that he were.”

  
  


Agnes and Birdie insisted on going with Levi to the police station to see Erwin released.  Levi was terrified they’d hold him just in case there were two rapists but the wiry blonde man confessed to all the rapes (and several more) after being beaten thoroughly by the irate police officers.

They refused to let Levi back where the cells were and made him wait in the tiny waiting area with the two nervous women.  When Erwin was brought out he fell into Levi’s arms to the disgust of the officers present.

The walk home was joyous, Levi and Erwin held hands with the darkness to cloak them and the women chattered animatedly.  At Levi’s apartment, at the bottom of the stairs, it took several tries to rid themselves of Agnes and Birdie. Finally the clever Birdie cottoned on and the two women left them in peace with much blushing and giggling.

 


	10. Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack

_ Ch 10- Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack- _

The two men fell on each other as soon as the door to the apartment shut.  Erwin struggled with Levi’s coat as Levi pressed him back against the door, rising up to his tiptoes to kiss the taller man.  They finally divested each other of every stitch of clothing between them and stumbled for the bed. Levi snatched the quilt off the bed so that they wouldn’t stain it and tipped Erwin easily onto the sheets.

He arranged the big man just so; on his back, legs splayed apart.  Erwin was trembling.

Levi swarmed agily up the larger man’s body and kissed him deeply and thoroughly, then, before Erwin could reciprocate, he drifted southward, light as goose down, sucking, kissing, nipping here and there.  He got to Erwin’s nipples and sucked gently and the blonde man almost came off the bed.

“Oh, god!  Levi!”

As the smaller man was dragging his tongue down Erwin’s taut belly he observed the man’s erection, big and heavy and bumping his belly.

Erwin groaned with need.

Levi purposely slowed, bypassing Erwin’s penis to draw his bruised face down the inside of one thigh through the soft wiry blonde hair there.  Abruptly he bit gently and Erwin jumped. His big cock throbbed.

“Please, Levi”

“Please what?”

“How can you be so cruel?” Erwin asked in anguish, one arm over his eyes.

“Please what, Erwin?”  Levi nipped at the soft skin again and was rewarded with another jump.

“Please do it to me.”

“Do what?” Levi drawled, nibbling upwards.

Erwin didn not reply but hissed in desire and frustration.

Levi slowly licked a hot stripe up the underside of Erwin’s cock.

“Ah … HAH!”

“Do you like that?  What is it that you want me to do Erwin?”

The blonde man had his lower lip gripped tightly in his teeth and couldn’t reply so Levi licked again.  Slower this time.

“Levi!”

Slowly, slowly, Levi bobbed down on Erwin’s dick and for several moments he just sucked and licked and kissed the massive member while Erwin squirmed under his ministrations.

Finally Erwin couldn’t take any more.

“Please, levi, now!”

Levi sat up and retrieved a small stoppered jar from the nightstand drawer.

“Olive oil,” he said to Erwins inquisitive look. “Relax now.”

Levi dampened his fingers with the oil and made teasing circles around the other man’s hole.  Erwin moaned in response and bucked his hips up.

“Faster, Levi, please.”

“Relax and be patient.  I would never want to hurt you.”

Erwin tried to be patient and when the tips of Levi’s fingers breached his opening he gasped and arched his back.

“Levi!”

“Relax,” the smaller man murmured, slipping another inch in.

“Now tell me what you want me to do, Erwin Smith.”

Erwin was too eager, too greedy; it felt too good.

“Do it to me, Levi.  Take me. Make me yours,” The big man gasped.

Levi slid his oily fingers out and lined up his hard cock, pushing gently.

“Like this?”

“Like that, Levi!  More!”

Levi grabbed Erwin’s muscular thighs and lifted, bending his legs towards his chest, and sank a few inches into the other man.

Erwin whined, tears beading on his lashes.

“Hurts?”  Levi asked, concerned.

“A little.  It feels -- AH! -- good!  Deeper, please.”

After a few minutes Levi was fully seated, balls deep and paused to let Erwin’s twitching hole adjust.  The bigger man panted.

“OK?”

“I feel so full …”

“Does it feel good, me inside you?  Filling you up?”

Erwin blushed and nodded.

“You ready?”

“Yes, Levi,”

The smaller man gave Erwin no time to reconsider but began a firm stroke that had the man below him crying out each time he bottomed out.

“By all that’s holy, you are so tight, Erwin, and so hot inside!”

Erwin was completely undone, unable to do anything but cry out in pleasure and chant Levi’s name.  Levi felt that desperate, tingling feeling gathering in his groin and angled his hips, looking for that sweet spot, pounding into the bigger man.

“Ahh!  OH! Levi …  _ Levi! _ ”

Hot, white cum spurted onto Erwin’s chest and his ass gripped Levi’s cock so tightly that Levi didn’t have a chance.  He came, shuddering, deep inside the other man.

“Oh, Erwin … Erwin …”

Afterwards they lay facing each other, bellies touching, cocks lying soft and sticky between them.  Erwin had Levi’s right hand in his left and was lazily lacing and unlacing their fingers. 

“How did you know how to do that?” He asked. “I mean, with a fella.”

Levi shrugged 

“I started when I was barely older than a boy; sixteen.”

“With gals or fellas?”

“Both”

Erwin contemplated this a moment. 

“I guess I like both, too,” he said his voice sad and soft. 

Levi squirmed onto his belly, half lying on Erwin’s chest, unlacing his fingers from Erwin’s to stroke the big man’s face. 

“You had a girl once,” He prompted gently. 

Erwin smiled sadly. 

“I did,”

Erwin lapsed into a silence so profound that Levi decided that he’d not get any more out of the man this evening.

“Lost my job.” Erwin said suddenly, quietly.

Levi stared at him.

“We took the train to the city,” Erwin said. “We’d just been muh-married.  I remember she was wearing a new black dress, with silver buttons.”

Levi reached out and re-took the big man’s hand.  Erwin squeezed Levi’s small one tightly.

“We were standing on the sidewalk right outside the train station ... s-someone - a man - he juh-jumped …”

Levi clutched at Erwin’s hand as he fell silent.

When he resumed, his voice was barely a whisper.

“The bo … the body … it fell on a car right beside us.  The noise was incredible. B-blood splashed on my … There was blood on my face.  And then there was this thing, this man, this thing that had been a man … he had caved in the whole roof of the car …”

Erwin subsided again, eyes unfocused, picking at the sheet.  It was several long moments before he resumed.

“My wife,”  Erwin’s voice had a dreamlike quality now, “Mary.  She tried to get away … get away. All that blood …”

When Erwin fell quiet this time it seemed as if he would not continue.  Minutes stretched out.

Levi put his other hand on the man’s hip.  Erwin was trembling.

“You don’t have to …”

_ “They killed her.” _

A thrill of horror shot through Levi.  The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

“They?”

“They ran her down in the street like a dog!” Erwin suddenly shouted, “ _ Like a dog! _ ”  he sat up and scrubbed at his face with both hands, “I let go of her hand.  It was my fault! My Mary …”

The man began crying then.  Slowly and faintly a first then more and more anguished.

Levi held him, held him pressed to him while he wept.  

Finally Erwin spoke.  It was only an anguished whisper.

“I loved her.”

“I know,” Levi said, stroking his blonde hair.

“I loved her so much!”

Erwin resumed crying on Levi’s shoulder.  After a bit Erwin pulled back, took his hot, teary face off of Levi’s neck and took a shaky breath.  He looked up at Levi, tears on his lashes.

“Is it wrong that I love you, too?”

It was Levi’s turn to cry.

  
  


In the early hours of the morning, while Erwin slept, Levi left a note and slipped out and to the police station on the other side of town.  He sought out the young and friendly police constable.

“When you told me about the suicide - on 10th street?”

“Oh, yeah.  Lawyer guy.”   
“You said a lot of people were injured.  Was anyone killed?”

The officer looked sad.

“Just one lady.  Pretty little thing.  Fell into the road and was run down.  Truck ran her right over.”

_ Like a dog _

“Never stopped, ‘neither, so we never caught the guy.”

Levi was anguished.  What had the sweet and gentle Erwin - and indeed his pretty new wife - done to deserve something so horrible?  What had Levi done to deserve to have Erwin come into his life? Why had those women had to suffer the attacks by the rapist?  Why did things happen like they did?

Levi didn’t know but he would do whatever it took to be worthy of his good fortune.

He walked slowly home to Erwin, lost in thought.

  
  


Levi straightened the gold colored tie and stepped back.  Erwin figited.

He held a small sprig of the rosemary, turning it over and over in his big fingers.  The smell was one Levi already associated with the blonde man.

“How do I look?”  

It was the first time, since that fateful night, that Erwin had worn the brown tweed suit.

“Like the handsome love of my life,” Levi said and held open the door.  “Ready?”

Erwin blushed and nodded.

As he passed out the doorway Levi admired the suit, Erwin’s broad shoulders and trim hips, the blonde hair neatly combed, and his heart filled with love.  The smell of rosemary lingered in the air and Levi teared up a tiny bit.

_ I will take care of him for you, Mary.  All the days of my life. I promise. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love and adoration to all of my readers! Your kudos and comments have kept me sane and encouraged, my loves. AND you managed to keep it up while Tumblr fell down around our ears? Y'all are amazing! THANK YOU ALL!


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